Internal audit

Internal audit is a requirement that appears in all management system standards. It is mainly an improvement tool that makes it possible to detect both anomalies and avenues for improvement internally in order to set up and deploy the necessary action plans. The company must first qualify internal auditors according to ISO TS 19011 and the management system standard that will be the audit framework, and then plan internal audits in such a way as to guarantee the impartiality and objective of internal auditors vis-à-vis audits. Several companies choose to use external auditors to carry out internal audits, in order to guarantee impartiality on the one hand and to provide a highly desirable external perspective to identify areas for improvement in a benchmarking logic. The internal audit is subject to an audit report and an action plan must be implemented to raise the detected deviations and implement the agreed improvement solutions.